


and if we do?

by Silverhaunter



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Aerith lives, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Between Cloud/Zack/Sephiroth and Cloud/Sephiroth and Cloud/Vincent, Canonical Temporary Major Character Deaths, Hojo decided to use his body to create more Sephiroths, In the sense that when Cloud killed Sephiroth, Kadaj is Cloud's son, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Not, The graphic depictions of violence tag is serious, Zack Lives, and it's never mentioned in specifics, because he ended up with mako poisoning so he was basically useless, between Don Corneo/ Cloud, but still potentially triggering so check the notes on how to avoid it, but there are violent scenes described, consenual, in the traditional sense at least, it's not super graphic, m/m/m relationship, no mpreg though, non-graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25743589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverhaunter/pseuds/Silverhaunter
Summary: Sometimes when Cloud dreams, he and Sephiroth dance and speak softly, accompanied by a man with a face he cannot see, but a face he loves, regardless. Those dreams he can never remember. Sometimes they kiss and press burning hot fingers to every inch of one another’s bodies just like they used to before. Sometimes they fight. Sometimes Cloud dies. Sometimes Sephiroth dies.Usually, they both die.“How about you, Junior?”He’s nearly the spitting image of him— the eyes, the hair, the set of his lips, his jaw. There’s not a single imperfection on him, carved out of the same marble he must’ve been.“That’s a good question, SOLDIER.” Kadaj is a little cruel, but at least he hasn’t set fire to anything.“You need a haircut.”“What?”“Your bangs are right in your face,” Zack brushes his bangs, if they can even be called that, away, but they just return to where they were and Kadaj narrows his eyes, “How do you even see—“Then comes the gunshot. Zack throws his body atop of Cloud’s.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Sephiroth/Cloud Strife, brief Vincent Valentine/Cloud Strife
Comments: 2
Kudos: 76





	and if we do?

**Author's Note:**

> I regret posting this a little bit. (a lot. I'm very scared. I just spent way too much time and effort on this not to.)
> 
> *** will be before and after the attempted non-con scene. 
> 
> i mostly just wrote this to play around with some ideas i had, so it's not really a full story so much as it's snippits.

* * *

Cloud kisses Zack deeply as Sephiroth neatly folds himself around the newly-appointed first class to mouth at his neck. Zack can’t help but shudder, and press himself against Sephiroth with a pleased sound, slotting his free hand into Cloud’s hair, and pulling just so, right at the nape, against his scalp. Cloud  _ definitely  _ whines, his hands clutching at Zack’s shirt, pulling him closer, trying to  _ devour  _ him.

“Wait, wait, guys--” Zack is breathless, and he can feel the weight of Sephiroth pressing against him, the impatience to his caress, and Cloud is relentless.

Cloud hums into their kiss, before drawing back for breath and dropping neatly to his knees.

“ _ Oh fuck.”  _ Zack leans against Sephiroth for stability. 

“Guys, wait, listen, guys.” Cloud looks up, irritation in his eyes, and gets up off his knees, his eyes meeting Sephiorth’s behind his back. 

“What could be so important--” Cloud glances at the folder in his hand, and promptly snatches it, shifting in his dress slacks uncomfortably.

Sephiroth’s reaction is more mild. He’s quite possibly entertained-- amused, even. 

“Nibelheim?” 

“Yeah.”

“Dammit.”

“I got them to assign all three of us, though, at least.”

Cloud rolls his eyes and Sephiroth kisses him softly.

* * *

Zack  _ screams  _ when Masamune pierces Cloud’s chest. He can see it perfectly from the angle he’s at, just like he can see Sephiroth lift Cloud into the air. How had it all gone so wrong? How had it all fallen apart so quickly? Seven days. It was only seven days. 

Something so terrible can’t happen in just seven days. 

Cloud pulls Masamune closer to him, plunging it deeper, and then uses the weight of his body to throw Sephiroth into the reactor. 

Zack can’t find anymore air to scream with. 

_ What went wrong? _

Cloud falls to his stomach, bleeding profusely from his hemorrhaging wound.

Zack reaches for him and pulls him close, wrapping his arm around him and keeping pressure on the wound with the other.

He tries calling for help, he tries to scream, and finally one of the younger turks finds him, looking almost sympathetic for a minute, before being pushed to the side.

They try to take Cloud from him as a faint green mist begins to trail into the air from between his lips.

Cloud dies in the reactor.

* * *

  
  
  


Cloud is limp against his side, his eyes glassy and unseeing. The clone, who calls himself Kadaj, is sitting on the other side of him, silver hair whipping him ruthlessly, despite the windbreak that comes from the truck’s cab. He has one hand rested on the sword they stole for him from shinra, a strange double katana. 

Zack throws a pebble at him. 

Kadaj lurches forward to look at him from across Cloud. 

Kadaj’s lip curls, “Fair, please.”

He grins, stupid and wide. 

“Whaddya gonna do when you reach Midgar?” he’s talking to Cloud, his hand on the blond’s knee.

“He’s not awake.” Kadaj says, and, because he is mature, Zack ignores him with a pout. 

“How about you, Junior?” 

He’s nearly the spitting image of  _ him— _ the eyes, the hair, the set of his lips, his jaw. There’s not a single imperfection on him, carved out of the same marble  _ he  _ must’ve been. 

“That’s a good question, SOLDIER.” Kadaj is a little cruel, but at least he hasn’t set fire to anything. 

“You need a haircut.”

“What?”

“Your bangs are right in your face,” Zack brushes his bangs, if they can even be called that, away, but they just return to where they were and Kadaj narrows his eyes, “How do you even see—“

Then comes the gunshot. Zack throws his body atop of Cloud’s.

* * *

Kadaj cuts down the infantrymen without remorse, a cold look in his eye startlingly familiar.  _ He _ always had that look during missions— at least toward the end of things. Like he was someplace else. Those last seven days, especially. His mind and body became a weapon, so hyper-focused on the kill that it seemed like all you’d get was “Nobody’s home right now, please leave a message” if you spoke to him. 

Kadaj stalks across the sand and rocks, blood on his boots from where it’s spilled into the dirt. His black leather and silver hair are a familiar blur in the corner of Zack’s eyes, so much so that it's startling, so much that he  _ aches.  _ A shot goes through Zack’s chest, barely avoiding his heart, and it is in that singular moment that Kadaj looks all too much like a harbinger of war, a sacrificial god. He makes a break for it as the last man dies.

He pulls Cloud tight to his chest, and blocks the oncoming attack, whatever it is, with the buster sword. When no attack comes, but a shadow falls over them, he feels fear— real fear— settle deep in his stomach, turn to poison in his blood.

“I’m not,” that’s Kadaj’s voice, and he sounds thoughtful, but not necessarily afraid, “gonna hurt you, Fair.”

Zack looks back at Kadaj, and suddenly, as if all at once, remembers that he has been raised in a lab, and that this same isolation eventually drove  _ him _ to madness. 

“I didn’t think you would.”

“I could hear your heartbeat.”

“I was scared for you, not of you.” 

Kadaj suddenly looks all too much like  _ him. _ “Right.” 

He’s trying to comfort Zack, but it just serves to make him feel worse.They make it to the church in Sector 5 just as the sun is beginning to set. 

Aerith runs to greet him, tears in her eyes, her smile blinding.

“Zack! Oh my— Zack!” Aerith rushes to clean off a space on the floor for them to lie Cloud down, who is flushed and sweating. 

Aerith could say, ‘it’s been four years!’ she could say ‘who is this?’ she could ask, ‘did you get my letters?’ but she doesn’t. Instead, she says:

“Tell me what happened to him.” she runs her hands over his forehead, “He’s burning up.”

“His body is probably rejecting whatever Hojo did to him.”

“What exactly was done to him?”

Kadaj looks visibly uncomfortable, shifting on his toes.

“I don’t know, I was…” Zack pushes Cloud’s bangs off of his forehead, which has quickly become sweat-damp.

Aerith seems to get the hint.

“Do you remember Juvia?”

“Your blackmarket doctor friend? Didn’t she get arrested?”

“She escaped and moved to wall market. And she’s a  _ surgeon _ now, anyway.”

* * *

Juvia is with Cloud for an entire  _ month _ .

A week in, a girl named Dynise (and what sort of name is  _ that?)  _ informs them that they either pay, or they pay through work with a group called Avalanche.

“There’s a bar, run by Avalanche, a group fighting back against Shinra, they’ll help you, they can get you lodgings under the radar, providing that you do a couple jobs for them--”

“Done.”

“I didn’t even tell you what kind of jobs. Listen, kid, this is serious shit, you may be some sort of mercenary, you may have been caught up in Shinra’s shit at some point, but  _ this? This is terrorism _ .”

“I don’t care, I’ve gotta help him. Protect my honor as SOLDIER, y’know?”

“Wait, SOLDIER? You were in SOLDIER?”

“Sure am! —er, was!”

“Lemme make a couple phonecalls.”

* * *

  
  
  
  


“We’re actually closed for another fifteen minutes or so, but if you want to wait outside I can make sure you’re served first!” It’s a brunette girl, wearing strange silverish armor, who speaks.

“Oh, no. I’m actually here about a job?”

“A job--?” The woman looks up, and immediately notices the Buster sword. “Oh, you’re the SOLDIER, then?”

“Zack Fair, at your service!”

A man with a machine gun arm barrels out of the back room, and raises his eyebrow when Zack simply smiles at him.

“Who the hell—?”

“So, Zack!” and she’s leaning over the counter, lost in his eyes, “You know Juvia?”

“Ah! My friend and I were tortured by Shinra for four years. He had some serious damage.”   
“Oh.”

“I was told I could get lodgings if I did some jobs. Terrorism?”

“Eco-terrorism,” the girl corrects. 

“We’re gonna bomb the Northern reactor.”  
“You’re gonna _what?”_

“You in?  
“Oh hell yeah. _Spikey_ is gonna be pissed when he finds out he missed this.”

“That voice…” a woman comes out from the back room, a child in her arms, “Zack Fair?”

“Tifa,” he murmurs, “You’re alive.”

“ _ I’m alive? _ What about  _ you?  _ By the time anybody found us I was  _ so sure  _ we were all…”

She sets down the little girl, and Barret picks her up and takes her into the lower floors, using an arcade cabinet. 

“Nah.”

“So, is Cloud…?”

Zack has to close his eyes, has to fight away the weight on his chest, the memory of Cloud’s lips going cold against his neck. 

“He was hurt pretty badly, but I brought him back with me.”

“Oh,  _ thank goodness. _ ” She sounds like she could cry, but she releases a deep, weary sigh, and doesn’t.

* * *

Juvia guides them to the back of her shop, into one of the recovery rooms. They ignore the screaming and carefully dodge a girl running precariously through the hall with multiple blood bags. 

“It’s a Blue 7-12.” 

“I want Marie on it. I’m dealing with something.”

“Got it.”

She opens the door.

“We have to use codes to maintain  _ some _ level of plausible deniability should one of us get caught.” 

Zack doesn’t think that makes much sense, but he says nothing. 

“He’s resting, but there was... a lot of damage. I’m amazed he managed to survive with that level of mako poisoning. Who did you say did this to him, again?”

“Shinra.”

“Bastards.” She looks at Kadaj, but says nothing. 

Zack’s nails would be digging into his flesh if his gloves weren’t so thick, and even still, it’s taking all his concentration not to scratch holes through the leather.

“I had to intubate him, he’d contracted bi-lateral pneumonia and went into septic shock. I had to get the surgery done right when it was cleared, which thankfully, wasn’t too long, and when everything untwisted— which, without the mako, would’ve been impossible and the very attempt would’ve killed him— I managed to put everything that was still there back, and try to reverse what damage had been done. I’m telling you right now: he should not be alive. He should’ve bled out on the table maybe three, four times over. But something just kept healing him, faster even than we could cast curaza. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in you, Zack.” 

Zack can’t take his eyes off Cloud, resting peacefully, his skin finally warm with color. 

“He’ll be okay, right?” Aerith is looking at him with concern, her hands behind her back, rocking on her heels.

“Yeah. He should be. I mean, well, no, he  _ shouldn’t  _ be, but he  _ will _ be.” 

* * *

  
  


Tifa unlocks the motel room, now with two beds inside, and sets up a cot on the side of the small room, and then gestures to a closet nearby. 

“I figure, since Cloud isn’t really conscious, and you have someone else with you, that it might be safest to hide him when we’re away. This part of the slum is pretty safe, usually, but you never know, and if anybody comes rummaging around—“

“If anybody comes rummaging around he needs to look like he’s not purposefully being hidden.”

“Zack, tell me honestly. Are there people after you?”

“Probably.”

She frowns.

“What happened?”

“I can’t remember all of it, and Kadaj said he doesn’t either. It’ll be surprising if Cloud remembers his name when he wakes up.”

Tifa is  _ frozen.  _ Frozen in sight of the boy who looks just like  _ he did.  _ With thin, but plentiful silver hair, eyes serpentine, a mix of mako blue and green. 

“ _ No _ ,” she whispers, “He’s—“

“Yeah.”

“ _ Fuck.” _

* * *

‘ _ Don’t pretend to be angry about what they did to you. You'd just be angry that it wasn’t  _ **_real_ ** _. If you could feel, that is. You aren’t even yourself, are you? That’s not even your body, anymore, is it?’  _

* * *

Cloud comes to awareness in a place he doesn’t recognize, but certainly does  _ not  _ look like a lab. 

A boy kneels on the bed next to him, and Cloud’s breath catches in his chest. 

“Father,” the boy whispers.

“Kadaj,” the name comes to him quickly, without precedent. 

Kadaj is warm against him when they hug, and his hair soft against his cheek. 

“I haven’t told them,” he says, “they think I’m a clone.”

His memories hit him hard enough to render him motionless.

He ducks his head away from his  _ son  _ so he doesn’t have to see his father cry, and the boy crosses his legs, sitting beside him on the bed, looking sympathetic.

“They don’t need to know. They’ll…”

Kadaj is understanding, his hands folded, “They can barely look at me,” he laughs, and it’s sharp and cruel and hateful, “I can hardly stand it.”

Cloud pulls him close and presses their foreheads together.

“ _ I  _ cherish you,” and Kadaj bows his head with an unbidden sob, memories of the lab surfacing, of his brothers, of his father  _ screaming _ , of the smell of his blood, “even if they don’t.”

Kadaj presses his hand over his father’s heart just to feel it beat. 

“I  _ hate  _ them for it.”

“I know,” Cloud whispers.

“They don’t understand what a  _ gift  _ they’ve been given, simply for  _ surviving him.  _ I can feel him, even though he’s dead he’s right on the edge of my mind, hovering.”

Cloud doesn’t respond, taking Kadaj’s hands in his own.  _ What would he even say to that?  _

“and do you know what the worst part is, father?” Kadaj asks, his smile  _ manic.  _

Cloud brushes his knuckles across his son’s cheek.

“It scares them.  _ I  _ scare them, and they think I’m just a copy. They have  _ no idea!”  _ It’s that laugh again, sounding all too much like his sire, “ _ Oh,  _ I could show them, father. I could show them our  _ power— yours, his, mine, passed down from you to me. _ ”

“Thinking like that is what destroyed him.” 

Kadaj’s head lifts quickly, tears streaming down his face, and he looks so  _ angry.  _

“What if I end up just like him?”

“I won’t let you.” Kadaj looks pointedly at Cloud’s chest.

“What if I—“ 

_ “You won’t.” _

Kadaj rests his head on his father’s chest, “okay.”

Cloud runs his hand through the boy’s hair, “I’m here.”

* * *

  
  


Kadaj hands Cloud hardedge, which he purchased from Wall Market during their month stay. 

“Security will be up considering you  _ bombed the Northern Reactor.  _ You’re gonna need the help.” 

Zack tries to protest, but Barret takes one look at Kadaj and Cloud and wants them to join— another SOLDIER first class would give them quite the leg up.

They get down to the reactor core without much incident, though Cloud stumbles and clutches his head the moment they hand him the bomb. 

Hands ghost over his chest, and settle over his heart.

He comes back to reality with Zack kneeling in front of him.

“You okay?”

Cloud nods, though his eyes wander. 

They nearly get back out without incident, but as the catwalk explodes, Cloud falls.

* * *

Pushing open the doors of Don Corneo’s mansion with the satin lilac dress basically  _ sewn  _ to his body is quite the task, given that he’s not really sure what he might rip or tear if he moves wrong. They’ve smoothed down his hair miraculously, let it hang in his face, short spikes carefully hidden amongst extensions and forced into submission by the porcelain diamond tiara. The guards at the door let him in, and he makes sure to say nothing. The cologne he’s wearing does, admittedly smell nice, but the guards lean a little  _ too  _ close for his comfort. 

Aerith and Tifa don’t recognize him at first, which is sort of a good thing, he supposes. 

The doors shut to Corneo’s room with a disturbing sort of finality. 

Cloud’s skin crawls, and he shudders as he sits down on the edge of the bed closest to the door. 

Corneo instantly pounces, all unshowered musk and vaguely sewer scented. Cloud tries not to flinch as a hand caresses his jaw.

“Do I know you?” The man says, as he tries to pull Cloud back by the throat. Cloud lets him, falling to his back. 

“I don’t think so,” Cloud says, begging his mind to wander, begging to go somewhere else. 

“What sector are you from?” Corneo says, as Cloud tries, though not with all of his strength, to fight. 

Corneo seems pleased by his struggling, and squeezes his bicep.

“Seven.” Cloud says, carefully.

“Shame,” Corneo says, “Any family?”

“No.”

“That’s good.”

“Why?”

Corneo grins. “I shouldn’t say.”

Cloud parts his lips prettily, bats his eyelashes, just how sleazy men at the bar used to like it when he was younger, just like he sort of remembers somebody else liking it. 

He lets his eyes dart to Corneo’s lips, nervously to the wall, then shyly to his eyes. 

Corneo makes his move, taking the bait. 

He is a terrible kisser,  _ nothing _ like  _ him _ , and  _ Gaia,  _ isn’t he a nice thought right now? He can almost pretend that it’s the few months  _ before.  _

_ *** _

He’s so lost in thought that the hand against his thigh goes unnoticed, and so too, does the needle, until it punctures his flesh. 

He jolts, biting down on Corneo’s lip as hard as he can. Blood sprays into his mouth, and he spits it as forcefully as he can at the man’s face. 

He is pushed backward, and he goes down as his muscles give out. 

“You think I wouldn’t realize you were a man?” 

Cloud’s heartbeat turns frantic, panicked. He can still feel the needle in his leg. 

“I’ve known since you stepped into this mansion, boy, pretty as you are.”

Cloud is frozen, now, his muscles unresponsive. 

“They’re going to drop the plate on Sector Seven and you’re going to be  _ here,  _ like the whore you signed up to be, and then you will die, like the Avalanche trash you are.” 

Cloud reaches down, down to where his dress is rucked up, where the needle is still stuck inside his thigh, and his mind leaves him. 

***

* * *

“ _ Succumb to me.” and it's his voice. _

* * *

  
  
  


When Tifa and Aerith finally happen upon Cloud, the screaming has already stopped. 

Cloud is on the ground, crouched over an unmoving figure, his arm mechanically raising over his head only to plunge back down with enough force to break bone. 

There is blood in his face, on the carpet, on the bed. He’s looking at the Don’s face, but he’s not  _ seeing  _ anything. He licks blood off of his lips with a swipe of his tongue, and stands up, seemingly satisfied.

The body is  _ mutilated,  _ both eyes gouged out, the throat torn open, the chest punctured and broken. 

Cloud walks past them, unseeing, through the back of the mansion and into the dress shop, where he sheds the dress and refits himself with his usual attire. 

It is only once Hardege is safely secured to his back that his eyes regain clarity. 

“They’re going to drop the Sector Seven plate.” He says, slowly, looking at his hands.

* * *

And they do. 

Cloud is running to Sector Seven, having been left at the blackmarket hospital in Wall Market when the plate falls. Zack shouts a name, and it’s not just any name, it’s “ _ Aerith!”  _

_ For some reason that aches. _

Cloud looks around, and though he sees Zack, he does not see Kadaj.

He immediately assumes the worst.

Cloud meets the rubble with his palms and claws at the rock and metal, pushing pieces to the side, frantic.

He can’t even speak, let alone cry out as he falls to his knees. He opens his mouth to let out a scream, but nothing leaves him. 

“ _ Where’s Aerith?” _

_ “Shinra…” _

_ “Shit! I have to go. I have to go find her.” _

_ “We’ll all go. We’ll go get Cloud and we’ll all go.” _

_ “Cloud’s right there.”  _

Cloud feels a hand on his soldier, and despite seeing Kadaj’s face, it is like he is lost. 

Zack wants to kiss him, wants to  _ hold him,  _ but he can’t.

Because Cloud doesn’t remember.

* * *

Seeing Masamune stabbed in the president’s back is like a shock to Cloud’s systems. He takes an involuntary step forward, and then another.

Kadaj tears his glove off with his teeth and wraps his still gloved hand around the hilt, quickly pulling the sword from the body, slinging it to the side to wick the blood from the blade.

He presses two fingers into the wound, and quickly pulls away. “Still warm.” He switches the hilt to his gloveless hand.

“It feels alive.”

Zack’s muscles noticeably twitch, and he stiffens, his arm going for the Buster Sword. 

* * *

Sometimes when Cloud dreams, he and Sephiroth dance and speak softly, accompanied by a man with a face he cannot see, but a face he loves, regardless. Those dreams he can never remember. Sometimes they kiss and press burning hot fingers to every inch of one another’s bodies just like they used to  _ before _ . Sometimes they fight. Sometimes Cloud dies. Sometimes Sephiroth dies.

Usually, they both die.

In all of these dreams, they have golden marks where they dealt fatal wounds to one another, Cloud’s poised in front of his heart, and Sephiroth’s from his left hip to the middle of his spine. Both wounds show on the front and back of their bodies, glowing, golden,  _ beautiful. _

Cloud finds himself, shirtless, pressed to the floor of the church in Sector Five.

“ _ Cloud _ ,” he murmurs, and Cloud knows this dream well, so he meets Sephiroth’s lips easily, parting his lips to allow his tongue to dart in. 

Sephiroth is straddling him, keeping him securely pinned to the floorboards, their shirts already gone, his scars from Hojo, from before the mako, pale against his skin insignificant to the glowing scar on his chest.

He’s been having this dream since they retrieved Vincent from the basement. Maybe because he and the other man have been dancing around each other, cautiously, carefully— hesitant.  _ The scars would show. There would be questions— _

“ _ Fuck me.” _

“Should I make you mine _ here,  _ in this _ sacred place?”  _

“— _ Lab not good enough?”  _ Cloud breathes, because this is inherently  _ wrong  _ but he  _ likes it anyway.  _

“I’m already  _ yours _ ,” Cloud digs his fingers into his shoulders, sliding his hands down his chest to rest on his thighs. Sephiroth’s hand trails along his largest scar, a cross lying in the center of his abdomen.

Sephiroth hums, dragging his lips and teeth over the scar. 

Cloud’s abs tighten in response, and Sephiroth places a hand over the scar and presses down on solid muscle. 

“Impatient,” Sephiroth murmurs, and Cloud’s hands scramble for purchase, digging into his defined shoulder blades.

Cloud  _ screams _ .

_ They both still die anyway.  _

* * *

A hound latches itself to Cloud’s throat, and tears at his windpipe. It falls over suddenly with a bullet through its skull, and Cloud stumbles to his feet, gurgling. 

His vision swims, and he feels a solid heat at his back, before he passes out.

Vincent kneels in front of him, fear in his eyes as a phoenix down dissipates between their clasped hands. 

Vincent says nothing, returning to the battle, but pointedly keeping within a certain distance. 

Cloud is bathing in the river nearest to camp, his hair plastered to his forehead and neck, the cool water lapping at his abdomen, high enough to cover his scar when Vincent finds him again.

The man sets his clothes beside Cloud’s, and Cloud politely averts his gaze.

Cloud lets his eyes skitter back to Vincent when he hears the water still near him, even over the sound of the small waterfall. 

The dark water rises just above Vincent’s hips, cascades down his chest and hair like something out of a  _ fantasy. _

Cloud is lost in thought, even when Vincent approaches, beautiful red irises (turned orange by the golden light of the soon-to-set sun) flicking from his chest to his eyes, dried blood washing away in the river.  _ Cloud’s blood.  _

“Thank you,” Cloud says, bowing his head.

Vincent flexes his fingers as he stretches his arms, “for what?”

“Saving my life, today.”

Vincent shakes his head, “You would’ve been alright.”

“I saw the Phoenix Down.”

Vincent searches his face, considering his next words.

“I did what I could.” 

Cloud wraps his hands around one of Vincent’s, “I owe you.” 

“You don’t.”

“Then accept the thanks.” 

Vincent hums as their eyes meet and something catches fire in them both, perhaps a reflection of someone else they find in one another. 

Vincent leans toward him, and tilts his head ever so slightly, and Cloud surges forward to meet him. 

Cloud presses his hands to Vincent’s chest, and Vincent’s hands slip down to loosely grab his hips.

Cloud sucks in a breath as they part, and uses the flat of his tongue to lick a stripe up his chest like a man dying of thirst, catching the rivulets of water on his tongue. He wraps his arms around Vincent’s neck to bite a mark onto his throat.

He lifts Cloud and sets him down at the water’s edge, a slab of smooth river rock at his back.

They make it back to camp eventually.

* * *

Cloud’s dreaming again, he’s fairly sure, as his shoulder blades grind against the wooden slats of the church. 

Sephiroth’s boot neatly lands on Cloud’s chest, the man looking down at him through a curtain of silver hair, drawing Cloud’s eyes to the long wash of pale skin on his chest and abdomen, his unnaturally pronounced muscles, like there is nothing but bone, muscle, and pure  _ power  _ in this man.

“You and Valentine?” He says, though he doesn’t seem particularly interested.

Cloud wrestles against Sephiroth’s weight, but the man applies just enough pressure to make his chest ache. 

“It was a  _ fling,  _ everybody in the group does it—“

Sephiroth’s boot digs in a little harder, “But you don’t, do you,  _ Cloud?”  _ The way he says it  _ burns  _ when the blond breathes it in, more so than any amount of alcohol Tifa could ever give him. 

“Sometimes. When I feel so inclined.” Sephiroth levels him with a knowing look, “What does it matter?”

“Have you forgotten me as you have forgotten Zack? We  _ are the same.” _

“Zack?”

“You don’t deny that we are the same.”

“Because it is blatantly untrue.”

Sephiroth smiles, actually  _ smiles  _ in that horrible way he does, like he knows he’s already won. 

“Is it,  _ Cloud?”  _

Cloud shoves his boot to the side, and Sephiroth drops quickly to his knees to straddle him. 

Cloud’s breath stalls in his chest at the weight of the man on his thighs, the sudden pressure on his groin, the hand pressing down into his chest to force him back against the wooden planks—

“Your body tells me what your mind refuses to.”

Cloud forces himself to stop arching his back to meet Sephiroth’s caress, as a hand delicately slides down his jaw.

“Just as mine responds in kind.” 

He rolls his hips, and he has great control over his movements, even in this,

“ _ fuck,”  _

Sephiroth’s hand cups his jaw, slowly inching his way to make their lips meet. 

“I will erase every memory of him from you, piece by piece.” 

Cloud grits his teeth and lets out a slow breath, which immediately fails to soothe or calm him down as the silverette gets even closer, smelling  _ real  _ and  _ alive.  _ Sephiroth doesn’t smell like a monster, of brimstone and fire and ash and leather, no. It’s so much more damning. He smells faintly of lavender oil and of caramel scented shampoo, which has Cloud gasping for breath and forcing himself not to press his nose to Sephiroth’s throat, just behind his ear to breathe him in. There is also an underlying smell of cashmere, vanilla and peach. Like a normal human being.Like once upon a time Sephiroth had an apartment he lit candles in and  _ breathed  _ and  _ slept  _ and  _ lived  _ just like everybody else. 

Sephiroth’s lips catch his while he's stunned. They’re soft —they  _ shouldn’t be—- _ like the skin of his biceps, his hair.

“Did you scream for him?” he says, and it should break the spell, but it doesn’t, even as his inhuman eyes catch Cloud’s, “Did  _ he  _ scream for  _ you?”  _

and then, barely a sound, “Should  _ I _ scream for you? Get on my knees and  _ beg _ ?” 

Cloud whines without really realizing it, and Sephiroth takes the opportunity to swipe his tongue along his teeth.

Cloud is lost in his head, now, but Sephiroth seems content enough to just let Cloud run his fingers through his hair and kiss him deeply. 

“I made you mine when I ran you through with Masamune,” he feels Sephiroth say it more than he hears it, fingertips ghosting over his golden wound, “just as you made me yours the moment you broke my spine with a borrowed sword.”

He gently,  _ so frustratingly gently, as if Cloud is something to treasure, to covet,  _ guides Cloud’s hand to his own wound. 

Cloud releases Sephiroth’s hair to scratch at his back as they move together, unnaturally strong nails leaving bloody streaks across marble skin. 

Sephiroth arches his back and moans like he’s dying and being reborn all at once, utterly consumed, and with a spray of blood his single wing forces itself from the skin of his shoulder to arch high above them both. 

The silverette pulls Cloud off of the floor and pushes him against the tall podium, hellfire in his eyes, righteousness in every muscle, each movement just as damning as the last. The flowers seem to  _ shine _ unnaturally behind him, his black feathers glittering like the clearest night sky in Nibelheim, sunlight drifting through his primaries, through strands of his hair, making it glow— painting him  _ God.  _

_ Someone to worship, someone to pray to.  _

Cloud breathes his name, devotee. 

Sephiroth breathes hotly against Cloud’s lips, pressing a solid, impossibly sturdy thigh between his. 

The blond sighs, chokes out a moan and something like his name, and lifts his leg to meet Sephiroth’s hand, which pulls their hips flush.

“ _ Sephiroth _ ,” Cloud rests his head against the podium, his mind slipping.

Cloud’s eyes, previously focused on the golden light in Sephiroth’s hair, fixate on serpentine green, his pupils slit, contracting and focusing on his partner, and pulls his leg from Sephiroth’s grip to pull their bare chests flush together, stealing breath from one another where their lips meet. 

Cloud pulls away violently, and something tears beneath his teeth. Sephiroth’s breathing is heavy, his eyelids low, pupils blown. _ Losing his precious sense of control _ . Cloud returns to him more tenderly, licking away the blood he’s drawn from Sephiroth’s lips, kissing him until the sting fades. 

Sephiroth pants against his lips for a moment, before their eyes meet, serpentine mirrors facing one another.

_ ‘Shall we call this reunion _ ?’ his voice echoes in Cloud’s head as their lips meet, consuming him, setting him on fire from the inside out, his chest heaves and he feels the sting of lust burn his spine and spread throughout his veins. 

Cloud abruptly pushes the man down by his shoulders, a fistful of silver clutched in his hand, resting at the base of his skull, pulling just enough to hurt.

‘ _ On your knees _ .’ 

Sephiroth looks up at him through his lashes and  _ smiles like he’s won.  _

_ ‘Shall I pray to you?’  _

* * *

The black materia feels almost  _ alive  _ in his hand when he reaches down into the crater of the temple to retrieve it. 

Then there’s that smell, the one that he only remembers from his dreams and from  _ before _ , cashmere and peach and, then, bitterly, freshly lit matches.

He whirls around, and finds himself backing away from his one-winged angel.

“ _ Cloud,” —his voice, how could he forget the way his voice digs into his skin, crawls around in his flesh—  _

Cloud feels  _ compelled  _ to walk toward him, he  _ wants  _ to.

“ _ Don’t,”  _ is that his voice? strangled, barely-there? 

Sephiroth’s head tilts toward his, his hand reaching out for Cloud’s. 

Their lips meet violently, more so than in any of the dreams. 

Cloud gasps and Sephiroth uses his right hand to pull him closer, kiss him deeper, and the materia slips from his hand into Sephiroth’s.

Sephiroth grins into their kiss, cruel and merciless. 

Cloud goes limp in his arms, and Sephiroth sets him on the ground, raising the materia to look at it in the golden light of the sun. 

Cloud’s eyes are hazy, his lips slightly parted and kiss-bitten. He is far more beautiful than any materia could ever be.

The rest of the group appears after too much silence, but Sephiroth can’t help but stare at the boy. 

* * *

  
  


Zack blocks the sword from meeting Aerith’s body, staring at Cloud with  _ horror  _ in his eyes. He pulls Aerith out of harm’s way, and Sephiroth looks for a moment like he will kill them both. 

“Don’t worry,”  _ that voice, “ _ I won’t kill him. After all, we  _ did _ love him.” 

“We--” The memories hit him harder than the sword that plunges into his gut.

Masamune impales Cloud, cutting open his stomach at the point where the scar on his stomach intersects. 

Cloud seizes, his body convulsing momentarily, his breathing quick and shallow.

“Z--Zack,” he whispers.

“ _ Father! _ ” Kadaj screams. 

A single wing explodes from his left side. Raven-black feathers rain down from the sky like ash.

Everything clicks, for some more quickly than it does for others, the way Cloud had acted when the plate fell, the way Kadaj reacted when Cloud was unconscious—- the  _ markings— _ so  _ this  _ is what Shinra did to him. 

Cloud reaches for Sephiroth’s arm, even as the man forces Masamune's handguard to press against Cloud’s wound, forcing a broken sound from his throat.

Distantly, he can hear Tifa scream his name.

“Your anguish is beautiful,” Sephiroth whispers, wrenching the blade from Cloud’s body, letting him fall to the ground, a hand quickly moving to cover his wound.

Cloud gasps and struggles against the impending darkness.

“I  _ hate  _ you.”

Sephiroth kneels beside him, leaving a lingering kiss on his bloodstained lips. “Oh,  _ Cloud.  _ I know you do.”

* * *

He awakens in a bed, fully recovered. Zack jolts awake and leans forward. Cloud pounces on him, knocking them both to the floor and kissing him breathless. Zack is motionless, though his body is twitching beneath him, “Cloud, no.”

“I had sex with Vincent,” Cloud murmurs, “but you knew that, didn’t you?”

Zack growls, a bruising grip on Cloud’s waist, and the blond laughs,  _ laughs,  _ like some sort of sociopath. Like he’s losing his mind.

Zack pulls Cloud into his lap, and the Cloud  _ bites. _

“Did you watch, Zack? Knowing I couldn’t remember you?” and suddenly, he feels all too much like Sephiroth.

“That won’t work,” Zack says softly, caressing Cloud’s cheek, tender as always, “You’re not cruel,” and his smile is sad, sort of heartbroken, “you’ve never been cruel.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Initial Concepts: 

Cloud is limp against his side, his eyes glassy and unseeing. His son (his son--!) is sitting on the other side of him, his silver hair whipping him mercilessly, despite the windbreak coming from the cab of the truck. He has one hand on the sword the stole, a strange double katana from Shinra. He calls it _Caelum Infernum_ when he thinks no one is listening.Kadaj (Cloud named him. Specimen S2 just, truthfully, didn’t cut it.) is not much like his progenitor or his sire. He’s dramatic, which, sure, both of them can be that way, but he also verges on talkative. He’s competitive, which, truthfully, isn’t all that different from either of his parents, but he’s also naïve and excitable. He’s physically affectionate, almost a little mean when he eggs people on, and a damn good swordsman. He’s happy, even though he’s scared. He’s scared because his father still hasn’t woken up, and, also, probably because he’s being shot at every other second. He’s happy, though, because like his progenitor, he desperately craves freedom. It is at the core of who he is to crave freedom— and he sort of has it. More than he ever has before, at least. He has been alive four years, but his body has aged and developed as if it has been 16.

And then me and my beautiful french translator did this:

Cloud est mou contre son flanc, ses yeux vitreux et dans le vide. Son fils (son fils—-!) Est assis de l'autre côté de lui, ses cheveux argentés le fouettant impitoyablement, malgré le brise-vent qui vient de la cabine du camion.Il a une main sur l'épée qu'ils ont volée à Shinra, un étrange double katana. Il l'appelle "Caelum Infernum" quand il pense que personne n'écoute. Kadaj (Cloud l'a nommé. Le spécimen S2 ne lui plaisait pas vraiment.) Ne se comporte pas comme ses parents. Il est dramatique, et bien sûr ses deux parents peuvent aussi être comme ça, mais il a aussi un côté bavard. Il est compétitif, ce qui n'est pas très différent de ses parents non plus, mais il est aussi naïf et facilement excité. Il est physiquement affectueux, presque un peu méchant quand il taquine les gens, et un épéiste sacrément doué.Il est heureux, même s'il a peur. Il a peur parce que son père ne s'est pas encore réveillé, et probablement aussi parce qu'il est abattu toutes les deux secondes. Il est heureux, cependant, car comme * lui *, il aspire désespérément à la liberté. C'est au plus profond de lui qu'ardemment il veut la liberté - et il l'a en quelque sorte. Plus que jamais, au moins. Il est en vie depuis quatre ans, mais son corps a vieilli et s'est développé comme s'il avait 16 ans.

but then i scrapped that whole part and felt very bad 


End file.
